Delve Into The Archives

In years gone by, it was often difficult to know where to get advice on how you go about delving into the archives; perhaps when retracing your family tree or simply looking up facts about a particular historical event.

Today, however, the story is a different one. Thanks to TV programmes, such as the Antiques Roadshow, the recent series, ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ and the Archive Awareness Campaign initiated by the National Council on Archives and the National Archives, we are more interested in our own and other peoples history, whether it be via historical images, films, photographs or documents. Thankfully, BT Archives has risen to the challenge of advising people how to go on this voyage of discovery and how to gain access to its archive material.

To aid all budding researchers from present and future generations, the website www.bt.com/archives advises about gaining access to a wide range of artefacts; perhaps you want to search through their telephone directories dating back to 1880 to trace the dwelling place of your great great ancestors, or simply want to view images and films from ‘years gone by’. If you’re interested in discovering the history of telecommunications, however, Connected Earth www.connected-earth.com provides you with access to thousands of historical artefacts.

So what’s stopping you? If you have ever wanted to make links to the past, wondered about the origin of your ancestors or pondered over how telecommunications has helped shape our world, what better place to start your search than here?

To help you begin your quest and answer your questions about the best way of delving into the past, we have Lucy Jones, Group Archivist at BT Archives and Katie Norgrove from the National Council on Archives, available for a live webchat on Wednesday 8th December from 3-4pm.

To submit questions before the chat questions@webchats.tv

To join the chat visit www.webchats.tv